


By the Way (I Made It Through the Day)

by cat_77



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 07:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17320697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: We all have our coping mechanisms.  Some are just more visible than others.





	By the Way (I Made It Through the Day)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is in reference to a line in the song “Second Chance” by Shinedown.
> 
> * * *

Alec stared at the way the blood pooled against his skin. Warm, then cool as the air hit it, the sting barely noticeable. “Shit,” he muttered, and pressed the washcloth against it.

His stele was... somewhere. The main room, maybe? Hopefully not his office. The last thing he needed was to wander through the hallways, get caught, and get dragged down to the medical wing. The wound was, well, not minor but not that severe. Not in the grand scheme of things. It was, however, enough to make people ask questions.

Not people. Magnus. Who had just let himself into Alec’s room and stood there, watching, waiting, when he darted out of the bathroom in search of the damned stele. His eyes widened and of course zeroed in on the red-stained bit of cloth held to hard edge of his wrist. His mouth opened, question that was hopefully not an accusation on his lips.

Alec beat him to the punch though, and swore, “It’s not what you think. It was an accident this time.” He then swore for an entirely different reason. Too much. He had given away too much with those last two little words. This time. Which implied a time or times before. Which implied those were far less left to chance.

“Alexander,” Magnus said, voice full of a sorrow he really did not want nor need to hear.

“I just need my stele. I know it’s around here somewhere...” There. On the floor, still in its neat little slot in his weapons belt. The entire thing had been laid out on his bed with the intention of personally cleaning each and every piece himself. They were his, and he should be the one to take care of them, not some lackey on punishment duty. He must have knocked it in his rush to get to the bathroom to grab something to sop up the blood.

He bent to get it and listed severely to the side, the scratch just above his hip making itself known with a vengeance. He probably should have taken care of that before he started in on the housekeeping aspects. That one he had purposefully ignored as payment for his own ineptitude during the mission. He would have gotten to it, eventually. Just after everything else and before he went back to the loft and his overprotective boyfriend.

Strong hands helped to right him again and he found himself face to face with said boyfriend. “Jace believed that you were hiding an injury. May I assume that you have more than your wrist as I doubt that one was easily hidden?”

Alec scoffed as Jace was hardly one to talk. His shirt had been shredded by the talons of the beast they had been fighting. Coat too, which meant Alec’s favorite leather jacket was toast. The two of them had switched in error when the call came in. Despite their size differences, they were nearly the same in the shoulders and it was just mainly the length that varied. That meant that Jace had battled sleeves that had wanted to cover his hands and Alec’s wrists were surprisingly chilly. They hadn’t had time to switch back and the longer length had protected a jab towards where Jace would usually be more vulnerable even as the slightly cropped version he wore meant he himself was more exposed, thus the slash.

He used the stele and felt the wash of relief as his wounds began to heal. The lightheadedness from what was apparently more blood loss than expected would take longer, but that wasn’t going to stop him from longing for a shower and a change of clothing.

He tossed the washcloth towards the bathroom to deal with later and gestured to the slightly tight and definitely wrong sized piece of clothing. “Can you?” he asked, body still protesting movement at the moment.

Magnus helped him shrug out of it and sit down on the edge of the bed before he held it up with a questioning eye. “Long story?” he guessed before he discarded it to the side and immediately went looking for further injury.

“Demon attack. Grabbed wrong jackets. Got nicked but nothing major. Came back and cleaned things and forgot and went to wipe the blade on my sleeve to dry it, only...”

“Only the sleeve didn’t exist?” Magnus finished for him.

“Something like that,” he agreed. He reached for the bottom edge of his shirt and peeled the sodden fabric away, knowing he was revealing just where he had been hit but also knowing it was pretty much unavoidable at this point anyway. The scratches and bruises were already healing, not much more than flecks and smears over discolorations, even if the ache still remained.

“I’m assuming you want to wash up?” Magnus asked. His fingers hovered over his skin, but they weren’t tipped with blue yet, magic held at bay.

“More than anything,” Alec sighed. He reached for his boots and found his hands swatted away as his boyfriend took care of those and his socks at the same time. He stood and shuffled back towards the bathroom, knowing a pair of eyes watched his every move.

He made it to the doorway before he was stopped by a hesitant, “Alexander. When I arrived... I saw your injury and admittedly... This time?” A swallow. A pause. “You said...”

Alec sighed. It was better to have the conversation now versus letting Magnus mull over it while he bathed. “When I was younger, I had some less than healthy coping mechanisms,” he admitted. He offered a smile devoid of humor or happiness of any kind. “An iratze and long sleeves could hide damn near anything.”

He dared to look up and found not pity, only concern. “And now?” Magnus asked around another swallow.

He leaned against the door jamb and decided it wasn’t worth hiding. He loved Magnus and he was fairly certain the feeling was mutual given the multiple declarations. Love came with pain and, in theory, an absence of secrets. “Honestly? There’s still times I’m a little slow on the stele and a little fast on the jumping back into things, either training or fighting or... It’s not the best solution, but it’s better than before.” A breath. A reminder of a silent promise. A reach for an innocuous item on his desk.

He tossed that item to Magnus and watched his dark brow furrow in confusion. “A planner?” he verified in confusion.

“I started this years ago when my parents offered me a chance to come back to Idris with them but I turned them down. I wanted to prove... A line means I made it through. An X means it wasn’t easy,” he explained. Better to have hash marks against paper than against his skin.

Magnus paged through it before he set it to the side, open to a particularly difficult week several months back. “And the colors? I know you too well to think they are by chance.”

“Some are,” he defended himself with a humorless huff. Pens ran out and he was practical enough to resort to whatever was available. “Red though. Red means I was tempted,” he admitted quietly.

He didn’t wait for a response on that, the pages laid out already damning in their own right. Instead he left to wash up, the door shut resolutely behind him.

When he returned, the book was back in its usual location and his weapons laid out neatly against the bedspread, shining and clean. Magnus made no mention of the admittance and they left for dinner as originally planned. His boyfriend was hesitant at first, but handsy when he found no objections, not an unusual occurrence after a battle that had left its mark. It was probably his own coping mechanism, the need to verify he was still there, and it was not one that was his alone.

That night, Alec fell asleep against far finer sheets than anything the Institute could offer, a reassuring warmth at his side. He awoke in the morning to the press of something pointy and not entirely comfortable against his side. He reluctantly opened his eyes to find a heavy tome bound in beautifully embossed leather, a delicate quill laid across the top.

“It’s enchanted to never run out of ink,” Magnus told him from his spot at the foot of the bed, tray laden with breakfast items in hand.

Alec pushed himself upright to better appreciate the gift. Well, gifts, plural. He opened the tome to find it to be a calendar of sorts, the first week aligned with the most recent of his own planner, tiny little marks copied down precisely. 

The prior night had been left blank as he had not completed it before they left. He picked up the quill and very pointedly drew a single line. He watched the dark ink seep into the page and near instantly dry, no doubt another enchantment. 

Satisfied, he tucked both items to the side and looked up at Magnus expectantly. “So, should we see what the day has to offer?”


End file.
